Conclusions

Continuities over many generations in the ‘moral panics’ induced by fears of new technology interacting with revised forms of popular culture should have become apparent by now. Whatever amuses the young for a price but does not appear to elevate public taste will invite criticism. The language directed against present-day forms of mass entertainment with an in-built youth appeal has much in common with the exaggerated rhetoric once generated by the allegedly mimetic ‘effects’ of the ‘penny dreadful’, the gangster film, or the ‘horror comic’ on juvenile delinquency. Intellectual rigour and honesty are in short supply on all sides of the on-going debate about the behavioural effects of certain forms of entertainment on a young audience. Academics engaged in a radical re-examination of the whole ‘media effects’ debate have recently questioned not only whether the media is capable of directly influencing young people’s views and actions, but also whether the simplistic idea of ‘effects’ is the most useful way of conceptualizing the relationship between the media and audiences.1